While flooding and inundation is not unheard of in the area – some of the smaller islets in particular come and go as sand banks are shifted over time – the inhabitants of Guna Yala have noted a definite increase in the number and severity of such incidents in recent years,

Natural Disturbances and Mining of Panamanian Coral Reefs by Indigenous PeopleBefore the 1980s, coral reefs were considered relatively stable and healthy in Kuna-Yala, Caribbean Panama. During the 1980s, however, several natural disturbances changed the reef’s community structure. We evaluated historical changes in coral cover and for the first time provide quantitative evidence of a large-scale process of reef degradation. This process started long before the onset of these disturbances as a result of demographic growth and the traditional practices of the Kuna people. Living coral cover declined 79% in 30 years ( 1970–2001 ) while the indigenous population increased 62%.We measured 20 km of seawall built with mined reef corals ( 16,000 m 3 ) and an increase in island surface area of 6.23 ha caused by coral land filling. Consequently, coastal erosion has increased as a result of the lack of a protective natural barrier and a 2.0 cm/year local increase in sea level. Coral-mining and land-filling practices to accommodate population expansion and mismanagement of resources have significantly modified the reef ecosystem and will have serious long-term consequences. We propose eight priority conservation areas within the Indian reserve, based on reef conservation status. The Kuna people and their leaders are considering a cultural change, which may include a gradual and organized migration to the mainland, and have optimistically accepted our results.

The impact of solar activity on the 2015/16 El Niño eventRecent SST and atmospheric circulation anomaly data suggest that the 2015/16 El Niño event is quickly decaying. Some researchers have predicted a forthcoming La Niña event in late summer or early fall 2016. From the perspective of the modulation of tropical SST by solar activity, the authors studied the evolution of the 2015/16 El Niño event, which occurred right after the 2014 solar peak year. Based on statistical and composite analysis, a significant positive correlation was found between sunspot number index and El Niño Modoki index, with a lag of two years. A clear evolution of El Niño Modoki events was found within 1–3 years following each solar peak year during the past 126 years, suggesting that anomalously strong solar activity during solar peak periods favors the triggering of an El Niño Modoki event. The patterns of seasonal mean SST and wind anomalies since 2014 are more like a mixture of two types of El Niño (i.e. eastern Pacific El Niño and El Niño Modoki), which is similar to the pattern modulated by solar activity during the years following a solar peak. Therefore, the El Niño Modoki component in the 2015/16 El Niño event may be a consequence of solar activity, which probably will not decay as quickly as the eastern Pacific El Niño component. The positive SST anomaly will probably sustain in the central equatorial Pacific (around the dateline) and the northeastern Pacific along the coast of North America, with a low-intensity level, during the second half of 2016.

Modulations of solar activity on El Niño Modoki and possible mechanismsThis paper uses the sunspot number (SSN) index and the El Niño modoki index (EMI) to examine the possible modulation of El Niño Modoki events by variations in solar activity. A significant positive correlation was found between SSN and EMI with a lag of two years, and both SSN and EMI have an obvious period of about 11–12 years. The evolution of El Niño Modoki events was investigated using composite analysis. There was a clear evolution of El Niño Modoki events in the three years after the solar peak year. An ocean mixed layer heat budget diagnostic method is used to investigate the contributor to the anomalous patterns in the three years after the solar peak. The atmosphere radiation fluxes are confirmed as the major contributor to the warming response in the central tropical Pacific. Two possible mechanisms are proposed, one is the direct mechanism that the solar radiation warms up the tropical pacific with a geographical difference, due to the cloud distribution. The warming response in the central Pacific is amplified by the coupled positive feedback between the ocean and atmosphere with 1–2 years lag. Another possible way can be described as follows: the solar heating effect propagating from the upper atmosphere modulates the strength and variation of atmospheric anomaly at high and mid-latitudes in the northern hemisphere winter, which results in an anomalous subtropical cyclone over the northeastern Pacific in the winter seasons following the solar peak years. The anomalous cyclone reduces the cloud cover over the northeastern Pacific and enhances the local input of solar radiation. As a result, a positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly occurs over the northeastern Pacific and extends towards the central tropical Pacific along the path of anomalous southwesterly winds, which may trigger an El Niño Modoki event in the following years.

Asymmetric impact of Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation on El Niño and La Niña characteristicsThe long-lasting cold surface conditions of North Atlantic, i.e., the negative phase of Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), can intensify the El Niño–Southern Oscillation through the enhanced air-sea coupling under the increased central-to-eastern tropical Pacific mean sea surface temperature. However, the impact of warmer mean sea surface temperature (SST) is more efficient in the intensifying El Niño than La Niña, because of the nature of the exponential growth of atmospheric convection to SST change. Moreover, the farther eastward shift of the atmospheric convection during the negative AMO leads to the stronger El Niño due to the longer delayed negative feedback by oceanic waves. Therefore, the AMO mainly influences the El Niño intensity rather than La Niña intensity.

Shifting livelihoods across the tropical forest frontiers of South America, the Eurasian Steppe, and the savannas of Africa are altering landscapes and leading to a significant decline in the amount of land burned by fire each year, a trend that NASA satellites have detected from space.

The ongoing transition from nomadic cultures to settled lifestyles and intensifying agriculture has led to a steep drop not only in the use of fire on local lands, but in the prevalence of fire worldwide, researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and colleagues found.

Globally, the total acreage burned by fires each year declined by 24 percent between 1998 and 2015, according to a new paper in Science that analyzes NASA’s satellite data, as well as population and socioeconomic information. The decline in burned lands was largest in savannas and grasslands, where fires are essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems and habitat conservation.

Across Africa, fires typically burn an area about half the size of the continental United States every year, said Niels Andela, a research scientist at Goddard and lead author on the paper. In traditional savanna cultures with common lands, people often set fires to keep grazing lands productive and free of shrubs. As many of these communities have shifted to cultivate more permanent fields and to build more houses, roads and villages, the use of fire declines. As economic development continues, the landscape becomes more fragmented, communities often enact legislation to control fires and the burned area declines even more.

By 2015, savanna fires in Africa had declined by 270,000 square miles (700,000 square kilometers) — an area the size of Texas.

“When land use intensifies on savannas, fire is used less and less as a tool,” Andela said. “As soon as people invest in houses, crops and livestock, they don’t want these fires close by anymore. The way of doing agriculture changes, the practices change, and fire slowly disappears from the grassland landscape.”

Andela and an international team of scientists analyzed the fire data, derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, as well as other sources. They compared these datasets with trends in population, agriculture, livestock density and gross domestic product.

The scientists found a different pattern in the rainforests and other humid regions close to the equator. Natural fires are rare in tropical forests, but as people settle an area they often burn to clear land for cropland and pastures. After the land is first cleared, as more people move into the area and increase the investments in agriculture, they set fewer fires and the burned area declines again.

The impact of human-caused changes in savannas, grasslands and tropical forests is so large that it offsets much of the increased risk of fire caused by warming global temperatures, said Doug Morton, a research scientist at Goddard and a co-author of the study. Still, the impact of a warming and drying climate is seen at higher latitudes, where fire has increased in parts of Canada and the American west. Regions of China, India, Brazil and southern Africa also show an increase in burned area. But the expansiveness of savannas and grasslands puts the global trend in decline.

“Climate change has increased fire risk in many regions, but satellite burned area data show that human activity has effectively counterbalanced that climate risk, especially across the global tropics,” Morton said. “We’ve seen a substantial global decline over the satellite record, and the loss of fire has some really important implications for the Earth system.”

Fewer and smaller fires on the savanna favors trees and shrubs instead of open grasslands, altering habitat for the region’s iconic mammals, like elephants, rhinoceroses and lions.

“Humans are interrupting the ancient, natural cycle of burning and regrowth in these areas,” senior author Jim Randerson, a professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, said of the African savannas. “Fire had been instrumental for millennia in maintaining healthy savannas, keeping shrubs and trees at bay and eliminating dead vegetation.”

There are benefits to fewer fires as well. Regions with less fire also saw a drop in carbon monoxide emissions and an improvement in air quality during the peak of the fire season, confirming the burned area trends using data from other NASA satellites. With less fire, the vegetation in savannas is also able to build up — taking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, instead of releasing it into the atmosphere during fires. The 24 percent decline in burned area may have contributed about 7 percent to the ability of global vegetation to absorb the increase in carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels and land use change.

The decline in burned area from human activity raises some difficult questions, Morton said: “For fire-dependent ecosystems like savannas, the challenge is to balance the need for frequent burning to maintain habitat for large mammals and biodiversity, while reducing fire on the landscape to improve air quality and protect people’s property and agriculture.”

As these savannas and grasslands continue to develop and agriculture intensifies, however, the researchers expect the global decline in fires to continue. It’s a trend that should be incorporated into computer models that forecast climate and carbon dynamics, Morton said.

“The loss of fire from agricultural landscapes has a big impact on communities and ecosystems. Looking ahead, models that account for changes in fire activity from human management will help us understand the feedbacks from fewer fires on vegetation, air quality and climate,” he said.

Multivariate Regression Reconstruction and Its Sampling Error for the Quasi-Global Annual Precipitation from 1900 to 2011This paper provides a multivariate regression method to estimate the sampling errors of the annual quasi-global (75°S–75°N) precipitation reconstructed by an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) expansion. The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) precipitation data from 1979 to 2008 are used to calculate the EOFs. The Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) gridded data (1900–2011) are used to calculate the regression coefficients for reconstructions. The sampling errors of the reconstruction are analyzed in detail for different EOF modes. The reconstructed time series of the global-average annual precipitation shows a 0.024 mm day−1 (100 yr)−1 trend, which is very close to the trend derived from the mean of 25 models of phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Reconstruction examples of 1983 El Niño precipitation and 1917 La Niña precipitation demonstrate that the El Niño and La Niña precipitation patterns are well reflected in the first two EOFs. Although the validation in the GPCP period shows remarkable skill at predicting oceanic precipitation from land stations, the error pattern analysis through comparison between reconstruction and GHCN suggests the critical importance of improving oceanic measurement of precipitation.

Changes in annual precipitation over the Earth’s land mass excluding Antarctica from the 18th century to 2013Precipitation measurements made at nearly 1000 stations located in 114 countries were studied. Each station had at least 100 years of observations resulting in a dataset comprising over 1½ million monthly precipitation amounts. Data for some stations extend back to the 1700s although most of the data exist for the period after 1850. The total annual precipitation was found if all monthly data in a given year were present. The percentage annual precipitation change relative to 1961–90 was plotted for 6 continents; as well as for stations at different latitudes and those experiencing low, moderate and high annual precipitation totals. The trends for precipitation change together with their 95% confidence intervals were found for various periods of time. Most trends exhibited no clear precipitation change. The global changes in precipitation over the Earth’s land mass excluding Antarctica relative to 1961–90 were estimated to be: −1.2 ± 1.7, 2.6 ± 2.5 and −5.4 ± 8.1% per century for the periods 1850–2000, 1900–2000 and 1950–2000, respectively. A change of 1% per century corresponds to a precipitation change of 0.09 mm/year.

Changes to the temporal distribution of daily precipitationChanges to the temporal distribution of daily precipitation were investigated using a data set of 12,513 land-based stations from the Global Historical Climatology Network. The distribution of precipitation was measured using the Gini index (which describes how uniformly precipitation is distributed throughout a year) and the annual number of wet days. The Mann-Kendall test and a regression analysis were used to assess the direction and rate of change to both indices. Over the period of 1976–2000, East Asia, Central America, and Brazil exhibited a decrease in the number of both wet and light precipitation days, and eastern Europe exhibited a decrease in the number of both wet and moderate precipitation days. In contrast, the U.S., southern South America, western Europe, and Australia exhibited an increase in the number of both wet and light precipitation days. Trends in both directions were field significant at the global scale.

Variability and trends in global droughtMonthly precipitation (P) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) from the CRUTS3.1 data set are used to compute monthly P minus PET (PMPE) for the land areas of the globe. The percent of the global land area with annual sums of PMPE less than zero are used as an index of global drought (%drought) for 1901 through 2009. Results indicate that for the past century %drought has not changed, even though global PET and temperature (T) have increased. Although annual global PET and T have increased, annual global P also has increased and has mitigated the effects of increased PET on %drought.

Multidecadal variability of the continental precipitation annual amplitude driven by AMO and ENSOAs the water vapor content in the atmosphere scales with temperature, a warmer world is expected to feature an intensification of the hydrological cycle. Work to date has mainly focused on mean precipitation changes, whose connection to climatic modes is elusive at a global scale. Here we show that continental precipitation annual amplitude, which represents the annual range between minimum and maximum (monthly) rainfall, covaries with a linear combination of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and low-frequency variations in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation on a decadal to multidecadal scale with a correlation coefficient of 0.92 (P < 0.01). The teleconnection is a result of changes in moisture transport in key regions. Reported trends in the annual amplitude of global precipitation in recent decades need to be assessed in light of this substantial low-frequency variability, which could mask or enhance an anthropogenic signal in hydrological cycle changes.

Century-scale causal relationships between global dry/wet conditions and the state of the Pacific and Atlantic OceansThe Granger causality test is used to examine the effects of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on global dry/wet conditions. The results show robust relationships between dry/wet conditions and the ocean states, as assessed through a multi-index (standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index and standardized precipitation index) and multiscale (3 months and 12 months) evaluation. The influence of ENSO events is widespread, dominating about 38% of the global land surface (excluding Antarctica). Southern and western North America, northern South America, and eastern Russia are influenced by the PDO. The NAO influences not only dry/wet conditions in Europe but also dry/wet conditions in northern Africa. Similarly, climate variability in southern Europe and northern Africa may be due to the concurrence of the ENSO and the NAO. Knowledge of the spatial influence of ocean states on global dry/wet conditions is valuable for improving drought and flood forecasting.

Is drought-induced forest dieback globally increasing?
Recently, it has been suggested that forest mortality has been generally increasing because of increasing drought and heat stress. But it is unclear if the observations at the investigated forest sites and regions are representative of forests globally and it has not been tested whether forest models are capable of reproducing these observations. We analysed historical climate data and used a dynamic global vegetation model (LPJ-GUESS) to assess (i) Which forests globally might have been affected by drought, (ii) If the field observations are representative for all forests and (iii) If the model can reproduce the reported mortality events.

Using two climate data sets and three drought indices, we identified no general global drying trend across all forests, but a large spatial variability. We neither detected a general increase in extreme drought events. A weak drying trend and an increase in extreme drought events were only apparent for forests in already dry climates and the locations or regions for which drought-induced mortality trends have been reported are predominantly in these dry climates.

LPJ-GUESS reproduced 66% of the reported mortality events and in 49% of the reported drought-induced mortality events drought was apparent in any of the climatologically derived drought indices. However, only in 30% of the cases simulated increased mortality coincided with drought events.

Synthesis. Our results indeed suggest that dry forests have been experiencing increasing drought-induced mortality. However, this does not apply to forests in general and the spatial variability has been large. The poor correspondence between the simulated and reported mortality events indicates that models like LPJ-GUESS driven by standard climatologies, and soil input data do not represent drought-induced mortality well. But the poor detection of the reported drought events in our climate indices also suggests that drought stress might not be the main driver of all the reported drought-mortality events.

Causes of differences in model and satellite tropospheric warming ratesIn the early twenty-first century, satellite-derived tropospheric warming trends were generally smaller than trends estimated from a large multi-model ensemble. Because observations and coupled model simulations do not have the same phasing of natural internal variability, such decadal differences in simulated and observed warming rates invariably occur. Here we analyse global-mean tropospheric temperatures from satellites and climate model simulations to examine whether warming rate differences over the satellite era can be explained by internal climate variability alone. We find that in the last two decades of the twentieth century, differences between modelled and observed tropospheric temperature trends are broadly consistent with internal variability. Over most of the early twenty-first century, however, model tropospheric warming is substantially larger than observed; warming rate differences are generally outside the range of trends arising from internal variability. The probability that multi-decadal internal variability fully explains the asymmetry between the late twentieth and early twenty-first century results is low (between zero and about 9%). It is also unlikely that this asymmetry is due to the combined effects of internal variability and a model error in climate sensitivity. We conclude that model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations.

Global land-surface air temperature change based on the new CMA GLSAT data setThe China Meteorological Administration (CMA) has recently developed a new global monthly homogenized land-surface air temperature data set. Based on this data set, we reanalyzed the change in global annual mean land-surface air temperature (LSAT) during three time periods (1901–2014, 1979–2014 and 1998–2014). The results show that the linear trends of global annual mean LSAT were 0.104 °C/decade, 0.247 °C/decade and 0.098 °C/decade for the three periods, respectively. The trends were statistically significant except for the period 1998–2014, the period that is also known as the “warming hiatus”. Our analysis generally confirms the spatial differences of global land warming over the two longer periods (since 1901 and 1979), as reported in previous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports, but shows that the recent “warming hiatus” period was characterized by a slower warming or even a cooling trend in the low to mid-latitude zones of the two hemispheres.

The relative contributions of tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures and atmospheric internal variability to the recent global warming hiatusThe recent slowdown in global mean surface temperature (GMST) warming during boreal winter is examined from a regional perspective using 10-member initial-condition ensembles with two global coupled climate models in which observed tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (TPAC SSTAs) and radiative forcings are specified. Both models show considerable diversity in their surface air temperature (SAT) trend patterns across the members, attesting to the importance of internal variability beyond the tropical Pacific that is superimposed upon the response to TPAC SSTA and radiative forcing. Only one model shows a close relationship between the realism of its simulated GMST trends and SAT trend patterns. In this model, Eurasian cooling plays a dominant role in determining the GMST trend amplitude, just as in nature. In the most realistic member, intrinsic atmospheric dynamics and teleconnections forced by TPAC SSTA cause cooling over Eurasia (and North America), and contribute equally to its GMST trend.

Hiatus-like decades in the absence of equatorial Pacific cooling and accelerated global ocean heat uptakeA surface cooling pattern in the equatorial Pacific associated with a negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation is the leading hypothesis to explain the smaller rate of global warming during 1998–2012, with these cooler than normal conditions thought to have accelerated the oceanic heat uptake. Here using a 30-member ensemble simulation of a global Earth system model, we show that in 10% of all simulated decades with a global cooling trend, the eastern equatorial Pacific actually warms.This implies that there is a 1 in 10 chance that decadal hiatus periods may occur without the equatorial Pacific being the dominant pacemaker. In addition, the global ocean heat uptake tends to slow down during hiatus decades implying a fundamentally different global climate feedback factor on decadal time scales than on centennial time scales and calling for caution inferring climate sensitivity from decadal-scale variability.

From accelerated warming to warming hiatus in ChinaAs the recent global warming hiatus has attracted worldwide attention, we examined the robustness of the warming hiatus in China and the related dynamical mechanisms in this study. Based on the results confirmed by the multiple data and trend analysis methods, we found that the annual mean temperature in China had a cooling trend during the recent global warming hiatus period, which suggested a robust warming hiatus in China. The warming hiatus in China was dominated by the cooling trend in the cold season, which was mainly induced by the more frequent and enhanced extreme-cold events. By examining the variability of the temperature over different time scales, we found the recent warming hiatus was mainly associated with a downward change of decadal variability, which counteracted the background warming trend. Decadal variability was also much greater in the cold season than in the warm season, and also contributed the most to the previous accelerated warming.We found that the previous accelerated warming and the recent warming hiatus, and the decadal variability of temperature in China were connected to changes in atmospheric circulation. There were opposite circulation changes during these two periods. The westerly winds from the low to the high troposphere over the north of China all enhanced during the previous accelerated warming period, while it weakened during the recent hiatus. The enhanced westerly winds suppressed the invasion of cold air from the Arctic and vice versa. Less frequent atmospheric blocking during the accelerated warming period and more frequent blocking during the recent warming hiatus confirmed this hypothesis. Furthermore, variation in the Siberian High and East Asian winter monsoon season supports the given conclusions.

Persisting and strong warming hiatus over eastern China during the past two decadesDuring the past two decades since 1997, eastern China has experienced a warming hiatus punctuated by significant cooling in minimum temperature (Tmin), particularly during early-mid winter. By arbitrarily configuring start and end years, a “vantage hiatus period” in eastern China is detected over 1998-2013, during when the domain-averaged Tmin exhibited the strongest cooling trend and the number of significant cooling stations peaked. Regions most susceptible to the warming hiatus are located in North China, the Yangtze-Huai River Valley and South China, where significant cooling in Tmin persisted through 2016. This sustained hiatus gave rise to increasingly frequent and severe cold extremes there. Concerning its prolonged persistency and great cooling rate, the recent warming hiatus over eastern China deviates much from most historical short-term trends during the past five decades, and thus could be viewed as an outlier against the prevalent warming context.

Spatiotemporal Divergence of the Warming Hiatus over Land Based on Different Definitions of Mean TemperatureExisting studies of the recent warming hiatus over land are primarily based on the average of daily minimum and maximum temperatures (T2). This study compared regional warming rates of mean temperature based on T2 and T24 calculated from hourly observations available from 1998 to 2013. Both T2 and T24 show that the warming hiatus over land is apparent in the mid-latitudes of North America and Eurasia, especially in cold seasons, which is closely associated with the negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Arctic Oscillation (AO) and cold air propagation by the Arctic-original northerly wind anomaly into mid-latitudes. However, the warming rates of T2 and T24 are significantly different at regional and seasonal scales because T2 only samples air temperature twice daily and cannot accurately reflect land-atmosphere and incoming radiation variations in the temperature diurnal cycle. The trend has a standard deviation of 0.43 °C/decade for T2 and 0.41 °C/decade for T24, and 0.38 °C/decade for their trend difference in 5° × 5° grids. The use of T2 amplifies the regional contrasts of the warming rate, i.e., the trend underestimation in the US and overestimation at high latitudes by T2.

Decadal predictability of river discharge with climate oscillations over the 20th and early 21st centuryLong-term hydrological forecasts are important to increase our resilience and preparedness to extreme hydrological events. The skill in these forecasts is still limited due to large uncertainties inherent in hydrological models and poor predictability of long-term meteorological conditions. Here we show that strong (lagged) correlations exist between four different major climate oscillation modes and modeled and observed discharge anomalies over a 100 year period. The strongest correlations are found between the El Niño–Southern Oscillation signal and river discharge anomalies all year round, while North Atlantic Oscillation and Antarctic Oscillation time series are strongly correlated with winter discharge anomalies. The correlation signal is significant for periods up to 5 years for some regions, indicating a high added value of this information for long-term hydrological forecasting. The results suggest that long-term hydrological forecasting could be significantly improved by including the climate oscillation signals and thus improve our preparedness for hydrological extremes in the near future.

Global assessment of trends in wetting and drying over landChanges in the hydrological conditions of the land surface have substantial impacts on society1, 2. Yet assessments of observed continental dryness trends yield contradicting results3, 4, 5, 6, 7. The concept that dry regions dry out further, whereas wet regions become wetter as the climate warms has been proposed as a simplified summary of expected8, 9, 10 as well as observed10, 11, 12, 13, 14 changes over land, although this concept is mostly based on oceanic data8, 10. Here we present an analysis of more than 300 combinations of various hydrological data sets of historical land dryness changes covering the period from 1948 to 2005. Each combination of data sets is benchmarked against an empirical relationship between evaporation, precipitation and aridity. Those combinations that perform well are used for trend analysis. We find that over about three-quarters of the global land area, robust dryness changes cannot be detected.Only 10.8% of the global land area shows a robust ‘dry gets drier, wet gets wetter’ pattern, compared to 9.5% of global land area with the opposite pattern, that is, dry gets wetter, and wet gets drier. We conclude that aridity changes over land, where the potential for direct socio-economic consequences is highest, have not followed a simple intensification of existing patterns.

El Niño–La Niña cycle and recent trends in continental evaporationThe hydrological cycle is expected to intensify in response to global warming1, 2, 3. Yet, little unequivocal evidence of such an acceleration has been found on a global scale4, 5, 6. This holds in particular for terrestrial evaporation, the crucial return flow of water from land to atmosphere7. Here we use satellite observations to reveal that continental evaporation has increased in northern latitudes, at rates consistent with expectations derived from temperature trends. However, at the global scale, the dynamics of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) have dominated the multi-decadal variability. During El Niño, limitations in terrestrial moisture supply result in vegetation water stress and reduced evaporation in eastern and central Australia, southern Africa and eastern South America. The opposite situation occurs during La Niña. Our results suggest that recent multi-year declines in global average continental evaporation8, 9 reflect transitions to El Niño conditions, and are not the consequence of a persistent reorganization of the terrestrial water cycle. Future changes in continental evaporation will be determined by the response of ENSO to changes in global radiative forcing, which still remains highly uncertain10, 11.

In recent decades, change has defined our environment in the United States. Agriculture intensified. Urban areas sprawled. The climate warmed. Intense rainstorms became more common. But, says a new University of Wisconsin–Madison study, while those kinds of changes usually result in poor water quality, lakes have surprisingly stayed the same.

The authors of the article, published online Wednesday in the journal Global Change Biology, assessed changes in measures of water quality, including plant nutrients and algal growth, in 2,913 U.S. lakes from 1990 to about 2011. The researchers found that, “despite large environmental change and management efforts over recent decades, water quality of lakes in the Midwest and Northeast U.S. has not overwhelmingly degraded or improved.” That doesn’t mean there were no notable trends. For example, 10 percent of the study lakes were getting “greener,” or seeing more algae blooms and plant growth, while only five percent were experiencing clearer water conditions. Still, the vast majority of lakes were stuck in a sort of water quality status quo.

The meaning of these results depends on your perspective, says Samantha Oliver, lead author of the report and a graduate student at UW–Madison’s Center for Limnology. On the one hand, the U.S. spends $3.5 billion each year on efforts to keep nutrients and the algae they feed out of our waterways. So the fact that there are no large-scale positive trends in water quality is dispiriting. But, considering that intensifying agriculture, warming climate and more intense rain events are known to boost nutrient runoff and algae blooms, the lack of a nationwide negative trend in water quality may be a heartening sign that management practices are at least holding the line.

Scientists’ reaction to these results, says Oliver, is “a glass half full, glass half empty thing. Some people say, ‘Whoa, the management must really be doing something,’ and the other half of them say, ‘That’s really depressing, our management hasn’t done anything. We need to do so much more!’” Her take is that government policies, such as the Clean Water Act’s limits on urban and agricultural runoff or the Clean Air Act’s limits on nitrogen and carbon pollution, do make a difference. “If our water quality improvement efforts hadn’t been in place, conditions could have been a lot worse,” she says. “It’s fair to say that these protections do matter.” But, Oliver says, the study’s bigger take-home message is one of scale.

Management efforts are often focused on improving conditions of a single lake. While those efforts may pay off locally and result in better water quality in that lake, these little victories don’t always add up to a bigger win. For example, one part of a stream may get cleaner when best-management farming practices are used in a nearby field, but those improvements can get washed away by poor management of the next field downstream. You can see this example play out, Oliver says, in the annual “dead zone” that develops in the Gulf of Mexico. As fertilizer used on Midwestern corn and soybeans runs off fields and into nearby streams, it ends up, eventually, in the Mississippi River. The Mississippi releases those nutrients into the gulf, where they feed huge algae blooms that develop, die and decompose — a process that consumes the available oxygen in the water, killing fish and making conditions uninhabitable for other marine life.

Dealing with the “dead zone” or any other large-scale problem won’t be a matter of simply improving conditions at the local level, Oliver says. “The environmental changes that are happening in the world today are happening everywhere, they aren’t happening in a single lake or a single stream,” she says. “While we like to focus on ‘our’ particular lake or stream, each one is different. How the whole population of lakes and streams, and ultimately, the Gulf of Mexico will respond to things like climate change or government policies can only be figured out by looking at the bigger picture of the thousands of lakes and rivers across the U.S.”

Long-term oscillations in rainfall extremes in a 268 year daily time seriesWe analyze long-term fluctuations of rainfall extremes in 268 years of daily observations (Padova, Italy, 1725–2006), to our knowledge, the longest existing instrumental time series of its kind. We identify multidecadal oscillations in extremes estimated by fitting the GEV distribution, with approximate periodicities of about 17–21, 30–38, 49–68, 85–94, and 145–172 years. The amplitudes of these oscillations exceed the changes associated with the observed trend in intensity. This finding implies that even if climatic trends are absent or negligible, rainfall and its extremes exhibit an apparent nonstationarity if analyzed over time intervals shorter than the longest periodicity in the data (about 170 years for the case analyzed here). These results suggest that because long-term periodicities may likely be present elsewhere, in the absence of observational time series with length comparable to such periodicities (possibly exceeding one century), past observations cannot be considered to be representative of future extremes. We also find that observed fluctuations in extreme events in Padova are linked to the North Atlantic Oscillation: increases in the NAO Index are on average associated with an intensification of daily extreme rainfall events. This link with the NAO global pattern is highly suggestive of implications of general relevance: long-term fluctuations in rainfall extremes connected with large-scale oscillating atmospheric patterns are likely to be widely present and undermine the very basic idea of using a single stationary distribution to infer future extremes from past observations.

A multi-centennial record of past floods and earthquakes in Valle d’Aosta, Mediterranean Italian AlpsMediterranean Alpine populations are particularly exposed to natural hazards like floods and earthquakes because of both the close Mediterranean humidity source and the seismically active Alpine region. Knowledge of long-term variability in flood and earthquake occurrences is of high value since it can be useful to improve risk assessment and mitigation. In this context, we explore the potential of a lake-sediment sequence from Lago Inferiore de Laures in Valle d’Aosta (Northern Italy) as a long-term record of past floods and earthquakes. The high-resolution sedimentological study revealed 76 event layers over the last ca. 270 years; 8 are interpreted as most probably induced by earthquakes and 68 by flood events. Comparison to historical seismic data suggests that the recorded earthquakes are strong (epicentral Medvedev–Sponheuer–Kárník (MSK) intensity of VI–IX) and/or close to the lake (distance of 25–120 km). Compared to other lake-sediment sequences, Lago Inferiore de Laures sediments appear to be regionally the most sensitive to earthquake shaking, offering a great potential to reconstruct the past regional seismicity further back in time. Comparison to historical and palaeoflood records suggests that the flood signal reconstructed from Lago Inferiore de Laures sediments represents the regional and (multi-)decadal variability of summer–autumn floods well, in connection to Mediterranean mesoscale precipitation events. Overall, our results reveal the high potential of Lago Inferiore de Laures sediments to extend the regional earthquake and flood catalogues far back in time.

Timing of deglaciation and postglacial environmental dynamics in NW Iberia: the Sanabria Lake recordThe multiproxy study (sedimentology, geochemistry and diatoms) of sediment cores from Sanabria Lake (42°07′30″ N, 06°43′00″ W, 1000 m a.s.l.) together with a robust 14C chronology provides the first high-resolution and continuous sedimentary record in the region, extending back the last 26 ka. The development of a proglacial lake before 26 cal ka BP demonstrates the onset of deglaciation before the global Last Glacial Maximum, similarly to other alpine glaciers in southern European mountains. Rapid deglaciation occurred at the beginning of the Greenland Interstadial GI-1e (Bølling, 14.6 cal ka BP). Following a short-lived episode of glacier re-advance (14.4–14.2 cal ka BP, GI-1d), a climatic improvement at 13.9 cal ka BP suggests the glaciers retreated from the lake basin during the GI-1c. Another glacier reactivation phase occurred between ca 13.0–12.4 ka, starting earlier than the onset of GS-1 (Younger Dryas). Rapid deglaciation during the Early Holocene (11.7–10.1 cal ka BP) was followed by a period of higher river discharge (10.1–8.2 cal ka BP). After 8.2 ka, the Holocene is characterized by a general decreasing trend in humidity, punctuated by the driest phase during the Mid Holocene (ca 6.8–4.8), a wetter interval between 4.8 and 3.3 cal ka BP, and a relatively decline of rainfall since then till present, with a minor increase in humidity during some phases (ca 1670–1760) of the Little Ice Age.

Discrete silt layers intercalated in the organic-rich Holocene deposits reflect large flooding events of the Tera River (ca 10.1, 8.4, 7.5, 6.2, 5.7–5.6, 4.6, 4.2, 3.7, 3.3, 3.1, 2.7, 2.5 and 2.0 cal ka BP). Their synchronicity with a number of cold and humid events described in the Atlantic demonstrates a strong control of NW Iberian climate by North Atlantic dynamics at centennial–millennial scale. Comparison with Western Mediterranean records points to similar regional dynamics during the Holocene, although modulated in the NW Iberian Peninsula by the stronger Atlantic influence.

Holocene flood frequency reconstruction from speleothems in northern SpainExtreme precipitation events may cause flooding in the subsurface as well as surficial drainage networks, and these flood events may be preserved in the speleothem archive. We describe here a study of stalagmites from the Cueva Rosa, a system with a perennial cave stream in a lower active level and abundant speleothems in a fossil gallery 6–8 m above the active level. Several constrictions in the lower level act as bottlenecks at discharges of 8–11 m3/s during high discharge events, flooding both lower and upper galleries. Because the cave stream is the only efflux for the small surface watershed (1 km2), it is possible to estimate the critical rainfall intensity rates and runoff required to flood the upper gallery. In the upper gallery, historical flooding is constrained by 14C dates of wood fragments which register both a both post-bomb event and event at 420 yr BP. The latter event appears to coincide with deposition of thick mud deposit postdated by speleothem growth since 324 yr BP. A mid-Holocene (8.1–5.3 ka BP) speleothem from the upper gallery contains 26 detrital layers composed of clays and quartz grains evident in sectioned stalagmites and in Al content in LA-ICPMS analyses. The 9 most pronounced layers reach a thickness of 0.1–0.3 mm in the central growth axis. Petrography confirms that calcite crystal growth is continuous through these detrital layers and that they represent decantation events rather than hiatus in calcite deposition. In the mid-Holocene, large events have average recurrence of around 300 years, although large events are absent from the period from 7.3 to 6.3 ka and more frequent in the older and younger portions of the stalagmite. In the last four centuries, two major events have partially buried an actively growing stalagmite, showing that extreme precipitation events capable of flooding the upper gallery remain a persistent feature of the climate.

Annually-resolved lake record of extreme hydro-meteorological events since AD 1347 in NE Iberian PeninsulaWe present an annual reconstruction of extreme rainfall events interpreted from detrital layers and turbidites interbedded within a varved sediment record since the 14th century in Montcortés Lake (NE Spain, 1027 m a.s.l.). Clastic microfacies intercalated within the biochemical calcite varves were characterized and their depositional dynamics interpreted using high-resolution geochemical and sedimentological analyses. Annual number of detrital layers was compared against instrumental records of extreme daily rainfalls providing minimum rainfall thresholds and return periods associated to the identified types of clastic microfacies. Non-continuous detrital layers were deposited during rainfall events higher than 80 mm (>2-year return period) while graded detrital layers and turbidites were associated with higher magnitude rainfall events (>90 mm and >4-year return period). The frequency distribution of extreme hydro-meteorological events is not stationary and its pattern coincides with historical floods from the nearby Segre River. High frequency of heavy rainfalls occurred during the periods AD 1347–1400 and AD 1844–1894.A lower frequency of heavy rainfall was found during the periods AD 1441–1508, 1547–1592, 1656–1712, 1765–1822 and 1917–2012. The 20th century stands out as the longest interval within the studied period of very low number of extreme rainfall events.Variability in extreme rainfall events prior to the 20th century is in phase with solar activity, suggesting a mechanistic link in mid-latitude atmospheric circulation patterns that ceased during the 20th century.

Evolving flood patterns in a Mediterranean region (1301-2012) and climatic factors – the case of CataloniaData on flood occurrence and flood impacts for the last seven centuries in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula have been analysed in order to characterise long-term trends, anomalous periods and their relationship with different climatic factors such as precipitation, general circulation and solar activity. Catastrophic floods (those that produce complete or partial destruction of infrastructure close to the river, and major damages in the overflowed area, including some zones away from the channels) do not present a statistically significant trend, whereas extraordinary floods (the channel is overflowed and some punctual severe damages can be produced in the infrastructures placed in the rivercourse or near it, but usually damages are slight) have seen a significant rise, especially from 1850 on, and were responsible for the total increase in flooding in the region.This rise can be mainly attributed to small coastal catchments, which have experienced a marked increase in developed land and population, resulting in changes in land use and greater vulnerability.Changes in precipitation alone cannot explain the variation in flood patterns, although a certain increase was shown in late summer-early autumn, when extraordinary floods are most frequently recorded. The relationship between the North Atlantic circulation and floods is not as strong, due to the important role of mesoscale factors in heavy precipitation in the northwest of the Mediterranean region. However, it can explain the variance to some extent, mainly in relation to the catastrophic floods experienced during the autumn. Solar activity has some impact on changes in catastrophic floods, with cycles related to the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) and the Gleissberg solar cycle. In addition, anomalous periods of high flood frequency in autumn generally occurred during periods of increased solar activity. The physical influence of the latter in general circulation patterns, the high troposphere and the stratosphere, has been analysed in order to ascertain its role in causing floods.

Changing climate shifts timing of European floodsA warming climate is expected to have an impact on the magnitude and timing of river floods; however, no consistent large-scale climate change signal in observed flood magnitudes has been identified so far. We analyzed the timing of river floods in Europe over the past five decades, using a pan-European database from 4262 observational hydrometric stations, and found clear patterns of change in flood timing. Warmer temperatures have led to earlier spring snowmelt floods throughout northeastern Europe; delayed winter storms associated with polar warming have led to later winter floods around the North Sea and some sectors of the Mediterranean coast; and earlier soil moisture maxima have led to earlier winter floods in western Europe. Our results highlight the existence of a clear climate signal in flood observations at the continental scale.

Extreme precipitation over the Crimean penínsulaBased on daily precipitation data for 1951–2009 from 18 hydrometeorological stations all over the Crimean peninsula, a 58-year data series of extreme precipitation parameters (precipitation concentration, level of extreme precipitation and number of days with extreme precipitation) were calculated. Linear trends of calculated parameters are estimated in this paper. Manifestations of the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) of the extreme precipitation changes were analyzed. The precipitation concentration is found to increase in the Crimean Mountains region in the winter season, but in the summer season the precipitation concentration is characterized by uniform distribution. Linear trends of the winter and summer precipitation concentration during the last 58 years are predominantly negative over Crimea. The maximum values of precipitation level in the winter season are typical for the Crimean Mountains region. In the summer season, values of precipitation change insignificantly. The number of days with extreme precipitation exhibits decreasing trends in the winter season over the territory of Crimea. In the summer season, the number of days with extreme precipitation in south-eastern part of Crimea has increasing trends. The negative PDO phase in the winter season was found to accompany increased precipitation concentration (up to 11%) all over Crimea and by decreased concentration (up to 4%) in the summer season in central, southern, and eastern regions of Crimea. The number of extreme precipitation days in the winter season is up to 30% higher in the negative PDO phase over the whole territory of Crimea, while in the summer it is up to 60% lower in the south-eastern part of peninsula.

A tree-ring perspective on temporal changes in the frequency and intensity of hydroclimatic extremes in the territory of the Czech Republic since 761 AD
It is generally accepted that anthropogenic-induced climate change may affect the frequency and intensity of hydrological extremes, together with a variety of subsequent impacts on ecosystems and human society. Proxy records that are absolutely dated and annually resolved are indispensable to a better understanding of temporal changes in the occurrence of floods and droughts. This contribution presents a new data set of 3194 oak (Quercus spp.) ring width samples from living trees and historical timbers, collected across the Czech Republic. A composite tree-ring width (TRW) chronology is developed that best captures the high-frequency extremes over the past 1250 years. The temporal distribution of negative and positive extremes is regular with no indication of clustering. The highest number of negative extremes was found in the 19th century, while positive extremes were most frequent in the 12th century. The lowest number of negative and positive extremes occurred in the 18th and 13th centuries respectively.

Negative and positive TRW extremes were compared with the instrumental measurements back to 1805 AD, with documentary-based temperature and precipitation reconstructions from 1804 to 1500, and with documentary evidence before 1500 AD. Negative TRW extremes coincided with above-average March–May and June–August temperature means and below-average precipitation totals. Positive extremes coincided with higher summer precipitation, while temperatures were mostly normal. Mean sea level pressure (SLP) over the European/North Atlantic sector suggested drought for the negative oak TRW extremes, whereas the positive extremes corresponded to wetter conditions overall. More consistent patterns of synoptic SLP were found for negative rather than for positive extremes. Reasons for the possible offset between the oak-based hydroclimatic extremes and their counterparts from meteorological observations and documentary evidence may be manifold and emphasize the need for multi-proxy approaches.

A UA researcher and her colleagues found a lull in Caribbean hurricanes during the Golden Age of Piracy corresponds to a low in sunspot activity.

Records of Spanish shipwrecks combined with tree-ring records show the period 1645 to 1715 had the fewest Caribbean hurricanes since 1500, according to new University of Arizona-led research. The study is the first to use shipwrecks as a proxy for hurricane activity. The researchers found a 75 percent reduction in the number of Caribbean hurricanes from 1645-1715, a time with little sunspot activity and cool temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere. “We’re the first to use shipwrecks to study hurricanes in the past,” said lead author Valerie Trouet, an associate professor in the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. “By combining shipwreck data and tree-ring data, we are extending the Caribbean hurricane record back in time and that improves our understanding of hurricane variability.”

Although global climate models indicate hurricanes will be more intense as the climate warms, those models are not yet good at making regional predictions, Trouet said. Learning more about how hurricanes correlated with climate for the past 500 years may lead to better regional predictions of hurricanes. “We’re providing information that can help those models become more precise,” she said. What is now the U.S. National Hurricane Center did not begin keeping records of Caribbean hurricanes until 1850, she said. Researchers have used lake sediments to develop a record of hurricanes over the past centuries, but these data provide only century-level resolution.

The new research provides an annual record of Caribbean hurricanes going back to the year 1500 — shortly after Christopher Columbus first reached the Caribbean. Ship traffic between Spain and the Caribbean became commonplace. Spain kept detailed records of the comings and goings of ships — at the time, ships returning with gold and other goods provided the income for the Spanish kingdom. Storms were the major reason that ships wrecked in the Caribbean. Figuring out how climate change affects hurricane activity is important for emergency management planning. For U.S. hurricanes from 1970 to 2002, other investigators estimated the damages cost $57 billion in 2015 dollars.

The team’s paper, “Shipwreck Rates Reveal Caribbean Tropical Cyclone Response to Past Radiative Forcing,” is scheduled to be published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. Trouet’s co-authors are Grant Harley of the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and Marta Domínguez-Delmás of the University of Santiago de Compostela in Lugo, Spain. The University of Southern Mississippi, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and an Agnese N. Haury Visiting Scholar Fellowship supported the research.

Trouet and her coauthors hatched the idea for the study while sitting on the patio of Tucson’s Hotel Congress. The three scientists were attending the Second American Dendrochronology Conference, which was held in Tucson in 2013. Harley mentioned he had tree-ring records from the Florida Keys that went back to 1707 — and that the tree rings revealed when hurricanes had occurred. The growth of trees is retarded in years with hurricanes. That reduction in growth is reflected in the tree’s annual rings. Domínguez-Delmás, a dendroarchaelogist, figures out when Spanish ships were built by retrieving wood from shipwrecks and dating the wood. Trouet wondered whether the tree-ring record of Florida hurricanes could be combined with shipwreck data to create a long-term history of Caribbean hurricanes.

The team discovered that a book used by treasure hunters, Robert F. Marx’s book “Shipwrecks in the Americas: A Complete Guide to Every Major Shipwreck in the Western Hemisphere,” had a detailed record of Caribbean shipwrecks. The team also used “Shipwrecks of Florida: A Comprehensive Listing,” by Steven D. Singer. The books, combined with ship logs, allowed the researchers to compile a list of Spanish ships known to have been wrecked by storms during the hurricane seasons of 1495-1825. The team found that the hurricane patterns from the shipwreck database closely matched Florida Keys tree-ring chronology of hurricanes from 1707-1825.

In addition, the team compared the Florida Keys tree-ring records to the systematic recordings of hurricanes from 1850-2009. Again, the patterns matched. When they overlapped the shipwreck data with the tree-ring data, the researchers discovered a 75 percent reduction in hurricane activity from 1645-1715, a time period known as the Maunder Minimum. “We didn’t go looking for the Maunder Minimum,” Trouet said. “It just popped out of the data.” The Maunder Minimum is so named because there was a low in sunspot activity during that time. Because Earth receives less solar radiation during lulls in sunspot activity, the Northern Hemisphere was cooler during the Maunder Minimum than in the time periods before or after.

Learning that a lull in Caribbean hurricanes corresponded to a time when Earth received less solar energy will help researchers better understand the influence of large changes in radiation, including that from greenhouse gas emissions, on hurricane activity. Having better predictions about how anthropogenic climate change affects hurricane activity is important because hurricanes are so destructive and have big societal impacts, Trouet said. She anticipates the new findings will help improve future hurricane predictions under a changing climate.

Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea and their relationship with sunspotsWe present the results of a time series analysis of hurricanes and sunspots occurring from 1749 to 2010. Exploratory analysis shows that the total number of hurricanes is declining. This decline is related to an increase in sunspot activity. Spectral analysis shows a relationship between hurricane oscillation periods and sunspot activity. Several sunspot cycles were identified from the time series analysis.

A New Compilation of North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1851–98A comprehensive new compilation of North Atlantic tropical cyclone activity for the years 1851–98 is presented and compared with the second-generation North Atlantic hurricane database (HURDAT2) for the same years. This new analysis is based on the retrieval of 9072 newspaper marine shipping news reports, 1260 original logbook records, 271 Maury abstract logs, 147 U.S. marine meteorological journals, and 34 Met Office (UKMO) logbooks. Records from throughout North America and the Caribbean region were used along with other primary and secondary references holding unique land and marine data. For the first time, North Atlantic daily weather maps for 1864/65, 1873, and 1881–98 were used in historical tropical cyclone research. Results for the years 1851–98 include the omission of 62 of the 361 HURDAT2 storms, and the further reduction resulting from the merging of storms to a total of 288 unique HURDAT2 tropical cyclones. The new compilation gave a total of 497 tropical cyclones in the 48-yr record, or an average of 10.4 storms per year compared to 6.0 per year in HURDAT2 less the author’s omissions. Of this total, 209 storms are completely new. A total of 90 hurricanes made landfall in the United States during this time. Seven new U.S. landfalling hurricanes are present in the new dataset but not in HURDAT2. Eight U.S. landfalling hurricanes in HURDAT2 are now considered to have only tropical storm impact or were actually extratropical at landfall. Across the North Atlantic, the number of category-4 hurricanes based on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale, compared with HURDAT2, increased from 11 to 25, 6 of which made U.S. landfall at category-4 level.

Active Atlantic hurricane periods, like the one we are in now, are not necessarily a harbinger of more, rapidly intensifying hurricanes along the U.S. coast, according to new research performed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In fact, the research — published Wednesday (Jan. 4, 2017) in the journal Nature by James Kossin, a federal atmospheric research scientist based at the UW — indicates that hurricanes approaching the U.S. are more likely to intensify during less active Atlantic periods. During more active periods, they are more likely to weaken.The relationship between the number of hurricanes that develop in the Atlantic basin and the number of major hurricanes that make landfall is a weak one, says Kossin, and one that has not yet been well explained. The new study accounts for at least part of that relationship.

Historically, notes Kossin, researchers (including himself) have focused primarily on the tropical Atlantic — the main hurricane development region —without distinguishing how hurricane-producing conditions may vary outside of it. They knew a combination of warm ocean temperatures in the tropics and low vertical wind shear (changes in wind speed relative to altitude) results in favorable conditions for hurricane formation, while cooler than average sea surface temperatures work in tandem with higher than average wind shears to produce quieter hurricane seasons. Scientists also knew that environmental conditions, primarily ocean temperatures and wind shear, determine whether Atlantic hurricanes intensify or weaken as their natural track pushes them northwesterly toward the U.S. coast. But Kossin, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Centers for Environmental Information scientist working out of UW–Madison’s NOAA Cooperative Institute, wondered “what other patterns there might be.” His study took a step back and looked for related patterns over the entire basin.

Kossin analyzed two datasets gathered over three 23-year periods from 1947 to 2015. The first dataset, from the historical record of hurricane observations maintained by the U.S. National Hurricane Center, supplied observations taken every six hours and included information on location, maximum winds and central pressure. The second, an environmental data set from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, provided a benchmark for sea surface temperatures and wind shear for the period of interest. Overall, when the tropics generate many hurricanes — during periods of low wind shear and high ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic — they also create a situation where those hurricanes lose energy if they approach the coast, as they encounter a harsh environment of higher wind shear and cooler ocean temperatures. “They have to track through a gauntlet of high shear to reach the coast and many of them stop intensifying,” Kossin says. “It is a natural mechanism for killing off hurricanes that threaten the U.S. coast.”

What are the implications for U.S. coastal regions? “It is good news,” says Kossin. “Greater activity produces more threats, but at the same time, we increase our protective barrier. It’s pretty amazing that it happens to work that way.” The data suggest we may be moving into another quieter period in the basin, however, where less activity works hand in hand with lower wind shears along the coast, eradicating the protective barrier. As a result, says Kossin, while there may be fewer hurricanes approaching the coast, those that do may be much stronger, in the range of Category 3 to Category 5. The threat of rapid strengthening is highly relevant to society, in particular to those who live along densely populated coastlines where the warning times for evacuation may already be short. “Knowing the relationship between tropical activity and coastal conditions that either protect the coast or make it more vulnerable may help us better prepare for future landfalls,” Kossin says.

Like any research study, the results raise more questions. For instance, how might climate change affect this relationship? Other studies, says Kossin, have documented a rise in sea surface temperatures — a shift attributed to anthropogenic climate change. But the sea surface trend does not seem to be having a large effect on hurricane activity in the coastal region, at least over the past 70 years or so. Kossin says this could fall under the heading of a “climate surprise” if the environmental conditions responsible for the protective barrier during active periods are compromised by climate change. “There is no reason to think that this is a stationary mechanism,” says Kossin. “It’s entirely possible that changes in climate could affect the natural barrier and thus significantly increase coastal hazard and risk.”

„However, the Atlantic basin is noted for having significant multidecadal variability in TC (Tropic Cyclons, d.A.) activity levels. The basin was characterized by a more active period from the mid-1870s to the late 1890s as well as the mid-1940s to the late 1960s. These periods may have had levels of activity similar to what has been observed since the mid-1990s.”

Frequency and intensity of palaeofloods at the interface of Atlantic and Mediterranean climate domainsMediterranean climatic influences was explored by studying a lake sequence (Lake Foréant) of the Western European Alps. High-resolution sedimentological and geochemical analysis revealed 171 event layers, 168 of which result from past flood events over the last millennium. The layer thickness was used as a proxy of intensity of past floods. Because the Foréant palaeoflood record is in agreement with the documented variability of historical floods resulting from local and mesoscale, summer-to-autumn convective events, it is assumed to highlight changes in flood frequency and intensity related to such events typical of both Atlantic (local events) and Mediterranean (mesoscale events) climatic influences. Comparing the Foréant record with other Atlantic-influenced and Mediterranean-influenced regional flood records highlights a common feature in all flood patterns that is a higher flood frequency during the cold period of the Little Ice Age (LIA, AD 1300–1900). In contrast, high-intensity flood events are apparent during both the cold LIA and the warm Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, AD 950–1250). However, there is a tendency towards higher frequencies of high-intensity flood events during the warm MCA. The MCA extremes could mean that under the global warming scenario, we might see an increase in intensity (not in frequency). However, the flood frequency and intensity in the course of the 20th century warming trend did not change significantly. Uncertainties in future evolution of flood intensity lie in the interpretation of the lack of 20th century extremes (transition or stable?) and the different climate forcing factors between the two periods (greenhouse gases vs. solar and/or volcanic eruptions).

Late Neolithic Mondsee Culture in Austria: living on lakes and living with flood risk?Neolithic and Bronze Age lake dwellings in the European Alps became recently protected under the UNESCO World Heritage. However, only little is known about the cultural history of the related pre-historic communities, their adaptation strategies to environmental changes and particularly about the almost synchronous decline of many of these settlements around the transition from the Late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. For example, there is an ongoing debate whether the abandonment of Late Neolithic lake dwellings at Lake Mondsee (Upper Austria) was caused by unfavourable climate conditions or a single catastrophic event. Within the varved sediments of Lake Mondsee, we investigated the occurrence of intercalated detrital layers from major floods and debris flows to unravel extreme surface runoff recurrence during the Neolithic settlement period. A combination of detailed sediment microfacies analysis and μXRF element scanning allows distinguishing debris flow and flood deposits. A total of 60 flood and 12 debris flow event layers was detected between 7000 and 4000 varve years (vyr) BP. Compared to the centennial- to millennial-scale average, a period of increased runoff event frequency can be identified between 5900 and 4450 vyr BP. Enhanced flood frequency is accompanied by predominantly siliciclastic sediment supply between ca. 5500 and 5000 vyr BP and enhanced dolomitic sediment supply between 4900 and 4500 vyr BP. A change in the location and the construction technique of the Neolithic lake dwellings at Lake Mondsee can be observed during the period of higher flood frequency. While lake dwellings of the first settlement period (ca. 5800–5250 cal. yr BP) were constructed directly on the wetlands, later constructions (ca. 5400–4700 cal. yr BP) were built on piles upon the water, possibly indicating an adaptation to either increased flood risk or a general increase of the lake level. However, our results also indicate that other than climatic factors (e.g. socio-economic changes) must have influenced the decline of the Mondsee Culture because flood activity generally decreased since 4450 vyr BP, but no new lake dwellings have been established thereafter.

A millennial-long record of warm season precipitation and flood frequency for the North-western Alps inferred from varved lake sediments: implications for the futureThe recent warming of the global climate is well recognized. However, does a warmer climate also mean a moister climate? Does dry get drier and wet get wetter? There are important questions as they relate to changes in the water cycle and impacts the water resources as well as the frequency and intensity of storms and floods in the near future. In Europe, regional climate models do not show consistent and robust results for future hydroclimatic changes and how extreme events will evolve in response to future climate change.

Paleo-hydroclimatic data from natural archives are one of the few means to assess such changes in the longer context. Here, we present an annually-resolved record of warm season (MJJA) precipitation and summer flood frequency from the varved (annually laminated) sediments of proglacial Lake Oeschinen (46°30′N–7°44′E, 1580 m, NW Swiss Alps) back to AD 884. These data sets are inferred from the thickness of annual sediment deposits and the occurrence of flood event layers in the sediments. The chronology of the sediment record is based on multiple varve counts and validated with historical floods chronicled in written documents (back to the 14th century) and 14C AMS dates.

The precipitation record shows pronounced interannual to centennial variability with humid warm season phases between AD 920–950, AD 1100–1180, AD 1300–1400, AD 1590–1650, AD 1700–1790, AD 1820–1880, and AD 1960–2008. Driest conditions are reconstructed for AD 960–1080, AD 1250–1300 and for AD 1880–1900. Our precipitation record is consistent with the few multi-centennial warm-season precipitation records available for Europe.

We did not find a persistent relationship between warm-season precipitation and temperature. In contrast, results show that the relation between precipitation and temperature has oscillated between positive correlations (warmer gets wetter, cooler gets drier) and negative correlations (warmer gets drier, cooler gets wetter) with a highly significant (χ2 = 99%) multidecadal (60–70 yrs) periodicity over the last millennium. Possible explanations for this phenomenon are changes in the weather type statistics or the within-weather-type variability, which influence the combinations between precipitation and temperature over continental central Europe and operate at multidecadal scales. Such multidecadal effects might also be important for precipitation scenarios in the Alpine area under future warming.

Our record of flood frequency suggests more frequent floods under cool and humid climate during the warm seasons. This picture is consistent with other studies from small and medium size catchments at mid- and high elevations in the Alpine area. However, the 13th century reveals a period with high flood frequency during warm and moderately dry (average precipitation) conditions. This anomalous situation is currently not understood; nonetheless, this is also one out of several possible scenarios for the future. From the different combinations found in our record, we conclude that the relation between floods, precipitation and temperature and, in consequence, future projections remain poorly constrained.

Highlights:

–The precipitation reconstruction is representative for most of Western Europe.
–The relation PP–TT follows a multidecadal periodicity over the last millennium.
–Intense rainfall events were generally more frequent during wet and cool summers.

Holocene flood frequency as reconstructed by lake sediments from multiple archives: A record influenced by solar forcing and atmospheric circulation patternsThe frequency of large-scale heavy precipitation events in mountain ranges is expected to undergo substantial changes with current climate change. Hence, knowledge about the past natural variability of floods caused by heavy precipitation constitutes important input for climate projections and natural hazard analyses. We present a comprehensive Holocene (10,000 years) reconstruction of the flood frequency in the Central European Alps combining 15 lacustrine sediment records. These records provide an extensive catalog of flood deposits, which were generated by flood-induced underflows delivering terrestrial material to the lake floors. The multi-archive approach allows suppressing local weather patterns, such as thunderstorms, from the obtained climate signal.

Influence of solar forcing, climate variability and modes of low-frequency atmospheric variability on summer floods in SwitzerlandThe higher frequency of severe flood events in Switzerland in recent decades has given fresh impetus to the study of flood patterns and their possible forcing mechanisms, particularly in mountain environments. This paper presents a new index of summer flood damage that considers severe and catastrophic summer floods in Switzerland between 1800 and 2009, and explores the influence of external forcings on flood frequencies. In addition, links between floods and low-frequency atmospheric variability patterns are examined. The flood damage index provides evidence that the 1817-1851, 1881-1927, 1977-1990 and 2005-present flood clusters occur mostly in phase with palaeoclimate proxies. The cross-spectral analysis documents that the periodicities detected in the coherency and phase spectra of 11 (Schwabe cycle) and 104 years (Gleissberg cycle) are related to a high frequency of flooding and solar activity minima, whereas the 22-year cyclicity detected (Hale cycle) is associated with solar activity maxima and a decrease in flood frequency. The analysis of low-frequency atmospheric variability modes shows that Switzerland lies close to the border of the principal summer mode. The Swiss river catchments situated on the centre and southern flank of the Alps are affected by atmospherically unstable areas defined by the positive phase of the pattern, while those basins located in the northern slope of the Alps are predominantly associated with the negative phase of the pattern. Furthermore, a change in the low-frequency atmospheric variability pattern related to the major floods occurred over the period from 1800 to 2009; the summer principal mode persists in the negative phase during the last cool pulses of the Little Ice Age (1817-1851 and 1881-927 flood clusters), whereas the positive phases of the mode prevail during the warmer climate of the last 4 decades (flood clusters from 1977 to present).